For Maxxie. (Early January)

[quite_a_delight]

It had been a quiet few days.

He hadn't been hiding, not purposefully, but he just... happened to be spending more time in the flat he shared with Kate. The anger he'd felt had burned out within the first day. He tried not to be sentimental about it, tried not to think about the images he'd had in his head. His first New Years with a real boyfriend. The party. The midnight kiss. The little romantic gestures that seemed more and more pointless, more empty, now that he was in a real relationship. He couldn't romanticize it anymore. Because reality was flawed. It was difficult. It took work. It was easier to keep his distance from something so perfectly simple.

And things weren't really simple, anymore.

He was on the sofa in the apartment's small living room, thumbing through a book he wasn't reading. He tried not to think about that ruined night, but more than that, he tried not to think about Maxxie.

But he couldn't seem to stop.

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[just_dance_it]

After his terrible talk with Marshall, Maxxie had gone back to his room, too high to sleep but too mixed up to enjoy himself. He lay there and listened to the muffled music and voices drifting up from below, thankfully unable to feel as badly about himself as he wanted to.

The next day was worse. He regretted pretty much every minute of his conversation with Marshall and wanted to run to his house and say so, apologize and try to make it work. But Marshall had said he needed time (Maxxie remembered that very well.) and not even Maxxie was stupid enough to think he had meant less than a day.

He waited, trying to distract himself. He planned out what he was going to say and then decided to wing it. Then he planned it out again. He ended up doing a lot of dancing, trying to clear his head and wear himself out.

Finally he decided enough time had passed. He wanted Marshall to have his space, but he also didn't want this to slip through his fingers. The longer he waited, the more it felt as though he was letting Marshall walk away, without saying anything, and that was worse to Maxxie than simply losing him.

He came knocking on his door, dressed against the cold and dressed well, but everything the clothes box gave him these days tended to do that.

[quite_a_delight]

The knock startled him and he took in a breath to collect himself before he tossed his book aside, getting to his feet and crossing the room. He opened the door a crack, then, with his heart lodged in the back of his throat, he opened it wider.

"Hey..." he said awkwardly, taking a step back, "Um... Come in?"

[just_dance_it]

Maxxie pressed his lips together in a quick, polite smile.

"Thanks," he said, accepting the offer and slipping in between Marshall and the door. He paused on the landing though, didn't move farther into Marshall's place or take off his jacket. He wasn't sure he would be completely welcomed.

"I was.. hoping we could talk," he said, glancing anxiously at Marshall. "If now's an okay time, that is."

[quite_a_delight]

"No, it's fine," Marshall said, "We can, um... We can talk now."

Kate wasn't home. They were alone, and nervous as Marshall might've been, he was glad for it. He loved his sister, but there were things about her life that he didn't want to hear, and he assumed the same went for her.

"We should go inside and sit," he decided, leading Maxxie through the entryway, and in through the open door of their cramped living room.

[just_dance_it]

Maxxie followed, fighting against the nervousness that wanted to grab him by the throat. The ease with which Maxxie usually glided through life came from a strong lack of concern. Some might call it short-sighted or selfish, but Maxxie didn't give a shit what most people thought of him ultimately. It didn't matter.

This mattered. He cared, not only what Marshall thought of him but how Marshall felt. He cared a lot and not knowing how badly he had fucked up was doing a number on his nerves.

He followed Marshall into the living room, helped himself to a seat on the couch and rested his hands on his knees, not sure where else to put them.

"So... how are you?"

[quite_a_delight]

Seating himself on the other end of the couch, his own hands resting awkwardly in his lap, he answered, "Fine." It was an ingrained instinct, this need to be polite and not start a fight that could easily be avoided, and he'd spoken it before he even realized it was a lie.

"Okay, no... I'm kind of... not fine."

And he'd been reduced to idiocy. But he didn't care. He didn't care if he sounded like an asshole. That didn't matter.

"Maxxie, I... I don't know what you're here to say, but let's not do the small talk thing, okay? It's approaching painful levels of awkwardness, and we just sat down."

[just_dance_it]

Maxxie winced even as he nodded.

"Yeah, that's.. not what I meant," he said, gaze sliding down only to rise again. "Sorry."

He could have phrased it better, but he had decided to wing this. Do what came naturally. Eloquence wasn't natural.

"You said you wanted time," Maxxie explained. "I reckon to think about things and how you felt. So that was me trying to ask if you'd done your thinking. ..Badly."

[quite_a_delight]

"Oh, right. Sorry," Marshall said awkwardly, and if he'd been the type to blush, now would've been the time for it.

"I... I have been thinking, I just... Don't know if it's helped," he admitted with a wince, "At all."

[just_dance_it]

Maxxie pressed his lips together and held back a sigh. Even when he had been trying to sort out what he would say right now, he hadn't planned on starting it, not really. He had figured Marshall would tell him what to do, since it was Marshall he had hurt. But Maxxie wasn't going to let this lapse into awkward silence or not try.

"I don't remember everything that happened," he admitted straight out. "I remember most of everything said, but... I want to make sure you know that I meant what I said about wanting to be with you, Marshall. It's not 'cause I couldn't be with Tony or 'cause it's.. easy, or whatever you said. I like you and I trust you. And if anything's easy it's 'cause I feel like I can talk to you. And you can talk to me. And I don't really feel like I can do that with anybody else."

[quite_a_delight]

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Marshall looked down at his hands, going over and over in his head what he wanted to say, how he wanted to say it, but it always ended the same. There was a point when those carefully chosen words became meaningless.

"I want to be with you, too, but how is this not standing in our way? I mean, it's fine now, I guess, but I don't want to be that person who ends up... in love with someone who can't love me back."

[just_dance_it]

His brow twitched, immediately falling into a frown as Maxxie stared at him with parted lips.

"..Why couldn't I love you back?" he asked, genuinely confused. "D'you.. think that's a one person only thing or-- Look, what I feel for Tony--" And God, did that feel awkward to say, especially to Marshall's face, but Maxxie couldn't think of another way to phrase it. "--it doesn't stop me from feeling other things. It's not like he's got a claim on my emotions or takes up all my thoughts. It doesn't work like that."

[quite_a_delight]

"So, you're telling me you honestly believe that loving two people isn't problematic? That going into a relationship when you're already in love with someone else isn't setting that relationship up to fail? Or, at the very least, putting the person you're in a relationship with at a disadvantage," Marshall said, because okay, fine, he could understand being liberal on your views about love and relationships, but thinking that there wasn't a problem when Tony was actively trying to make it a problem was undeniably naive.

"I'm tired of talking about this in hypotheticals. Maxxie, I... I really care about you. I really don't want to lose you, and I don't want to start telling you what I think you should or shouldn't be doing or feeling. But I need you to know that... I can't understand why someone who's supposedly your friend would want to try and screw up something that you've told him you want. Or, no, what I really don't understand is why you're okay with it. I get that the two of you have history, but one of the worst things about the other night was seeing you so upset. And it keeps happening. It happened after that fight, at Chris' party, and it's happened other times. And I feel like I'm missing something important because I don't understand it."

[just_dance_it]

Maxxie opened his mouth to answer Marshall's verbal barrage, but the words didn't come. What sucked was that Marshall was right, from his perspective. All he saw was Maxxie upset, near tears any time Tony Stonem entered the equation. A flash of anger flared up inside of him at the thought that Tony had done the same to him as he had done to Michelle. The last, the very last thing he wanted was to look the fool Michelle had.

But that wasn't all there was to it. It wasn't as simple as Tony being a dick and Maxxie suffering. But he wasn't sure it was simple enough to fully explain. Even if it was, Marshall probably didn't want to hear it.

He shook his head and decided to give it something of a go, though he knew he would probably muck it up. "It's a bit my fault. I thought-- Well, Tony definitely thought that when I got together with you, right after Billy left him, it was like I was choosing you over him, see? And Tony's not.. I don't think he's ever come last in anything. Which makes it sound shallow, and I suppose it kind of is, but he's got these good parts to him that no one sees, that no one wants to put the effort into seeing. So I can't just freeze him out. I can't do that to him when he's my friend, when it'd leave him with Effy and no one else. I want to get things back to how they were, but I know Tony. Cutting him out won't do that."

[quite_a_delight]

"So, how do you do it? How do you get things back how they were?" Marshall asked, knowing that no matter how bad you might want it, moving backwards in a relationship was next to impossible. If Maxxie had the answer, Marshall really wanted to hear it. Maybe then he could figure out what the hell to do about Lionel.

[just_dance_it]

There was a telling pause before Maxxie dropped his gaze, chin tucked in closer to his chest.

"I dunno," he mumbled. "But I have to try. And maybe just treating him like my friend will work. Maybe it won't. All I know is what I can't do and.. that's got to be good enough, for now."

[quite_a_delight]

Marshall let out a sigh, looking down at his hands folded in his lap and swallowing past the lump in his throat.

"The other day, Lionel told me that he's still in love with me," Marshall admitted, and he didn't know if it would be a surprise to Maxxie-- probably not, but it still felt like something the other boy should know.

"I mean, I get it. Things are complicated."

[just_dance_it]

Maxxie rocked back in his seat a inch or two, a subtle shift that might have been missed or discounted in a less intimate setting, but there was no mistaking it in that moment. His chin rose slightly, but not his gaze, not at first. His lips pressed together in the beginning of a displeased line, never quite reaching a solid emotion.

He wasn't surprised that Lionel was still in love with Marshall. Maxxie could understand falling in love with Marshall. He could understand how hard it would be not to. And they had been close, friends before lovers. That stuff always got complicated.

But Maxxie was surprised by just how much he did not like hearing it said out loud.

"I'm not trying to hurt you," he said, rather calmly, gaze finally lifting. "And I'm not staying with you just to avoid hurting you. I want you, Marshall. I want to be with you. If you get how complicated this is... then get that, too. Please. I'm in this, with you, 100%. I need to sort things with Tony, like you and Lionel need to have things sorted. But I'm not gonna let that change us."

[quite_a_delight]

"That's what I'm trying to say. I'm in this, too. With you," Marshall said, his hands twitching in his lap. He wanted to reach out and take Maxxie's hand, but as usual, there was something holding him back.

"I'm really in this, Maxxie. I... You said those things the other night, and I got freaked out. I want this to work."

I don't want to lose you.